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A team of eight international researchers, led by Stanimir Metchev from Western University, found violent storms in failed stars, known as brown dwarfs, by studying images captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, shown here. (NASA photo)

A team of international researchers led by a Western ­University professor has found what’s believed to be violent ­hurricane-type storms in failed stars known as brown dwarfs.

The discovery is significant because some of the celestial orbs have atmospheres similar to planets outside our solar system, meaning researchers down the road could study whether those planets have atmospheres that could sustain life.

“The neat thing is we can actually learn a whole bunch of stuff about the brown dwarfs themselves and in particular how cold or how hot their atmospheres are and whether it rains and what sort of stuff it rains,” said Stanimir Metchev, an associate professor in Western’s department of physics and astronomy.

“On some of them we’re finding that the clouds we’re observing are probably made of iron or sand.”

The findings were discovered from images captured on NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope during the last two years and presented Tuesday in Washington, D.C., at an annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Metchev led a team of eight international researchers in Canada, the U.S. and Germany that watched 44 brown dwarfs as they spun on their axes, trying to determine whether storms and weather are common in the ­universe.

The team discovered they could track which brown dwarfs had violent planet-size storms similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot by measuring how bright they were. As the brown dwarfs spun on their axes, the brightness of the brown dwarfs changed as the storms came in and out of view.

Some colder brown dwarfs have temperatures similar to Earth’s atmosphere and in the long term, the research could study the possibility that other atmospheres may be habitable.

The technique developed by Metchev’s research team — studying the brightness of brown dwarfs — could help researchers in the future study the makeup of other planetary atmospheres outside our solar system to find water clouds, which could sustain life.

Learning about the atmospheres of brown dwarfs will allow researchers to study the atmospheres of more Earth-like planets in the future, Metchev added.

“That is say 10 years into the future. We’re really just taking the first steps in that direction with this,” said Metchev.